The barn owners made it back safely from Florida on Sunday, so I am officially living back at home in the city. It’s necessary of course, but I’m suffering a little bit from horse withdrawal this week. Although the farm is a lot of work, there is so much to be said for having your day bookended by horses. First thing in the morning, feed the horses. Last thing before bed, check on the horses. I am still a pony-loving kid on the inside, so I thought it was awesome.

But, everything already got pushed back a month thanks to covid, so it’s time to get the ball rolling again. The SO started his new job on Monday THANK GOODNESS, so the timing was pretty perfect on that. He’s a mechanic at a luxury dealership (Bentley, Maserati, Lotus, Rolls Royce, and Aston Martin – and apparently they get paid more hourly for working on the Maserati’s for some reason? who knew.) pretty close by. He was originally a mechanic by trade but got burnt out on the business a while ago and went a different route. He was hesitant to go back, but the money is good and so far he seems to like this particular dealership. It definitely looks and feels like a high end shop, and they prefer quality of work vs just pushing things through as fast as possible. Plus it’s naturally a solo job, they all have their own tools, are spread out, and they’re cleaning things/wearing masks and gloves, so his risk of exposure is quite low.

I’m still working from home for as long as my company will possibly let me… I know they plan to start bringing certain groups/people back in starting June 1 but I don’t know yet where I’ll fall within that plan. I’m thinking of trying to see if they’ll let me work from home at least a couple days a week permanently. My company has been very against that in the past, but I think we’ve proven it’s totally do-able. Productivity has actually increased, if you look at the metrics. We’ll see. It would make things a lot easier for me, especially in the summer when it’s too hot to ride in the afternoon.

I did miss Grem though. I hadn’t really realized how much I love that cat until now. And the corgi, of course, who is really starting to struggle with his DM (I don’t think I ever talked about that, but yeah he’s got DM). I’m not sure how much longer he’ll be with us, so it’s nice to get more time with him now. Plus there’s also a new cat in the house since I was last living here, the black cat that SO got during Black Friday. I’m a total stranger to him, but he seems to be warming up to me.

Naturally, as Texas likes to do in the spring, it rained absolute buckets on Tuesday. Like 5″. With some tornadoes peppered in for good measure. One passed pretty close to the farm but luckily no damage was done, just lots and lots and lots of rain. And there’s supposed to be more rain coming this weekend. Figures, since I’m now pretty much recovered from my tumble and ready to get back to my regular riding schedule. Presto is going on 3 weeks now since his last ride and his Pest level has been steadily increasing along with his boredom. He needs to get back to his “job”. And Henry is looking an awful lot like the retired broodmare, physique wise. His dad bod is legit.

Which is mostly fine I guess. Yes USEF/USEA is starting horse shows again on June 1 but that’s not happening for me. The summer is way too hot for Henry, and at this point we haven’t shown since last July anyway. Plus I’m just… not convinced that starting horse shows again is the right move just yet. The smaller one day shows where everyone can work out of their trailer? Yeah, sure, that’s doable. But multi-day horse shows with shared bathrooms and stabling and travel and hotels and restaurants? I don’t think that’s a good idea yet. Especially not in places that are starting to see a rise in covid cases again (which is a lot of places right now). If some very local shows happen I’m not opposed to taking Presto for the day, but otherwise I just can’t see us doing anything until at least the fall. And I’m totally fine with that. It just needs to not rain buckets so I can get more rides on that punkass baby horse.

Speaking of which, since we have had a big gap in his schedule, I decided to forego Presto’s training vlog this month and do a combined April/May edition at the beginning of next month. The idea of making the vlog was too much for my concussed head at the beginning of this month, and honestly there wasn’t a ton to cover anyway. Hopefully we can get a little bit done in the second half of this month and be a little more interesting.

Today I’ll finish tallying up the results of the Baby Bets contest to publish with tomorrow’s Foal Friday post! May the odds be ever in your favor.